The Faces of New York

Flashes of police lights and sounds of sirens. Retrievers with families and bulldogs with hipsters. Green trees and squirrels the size of housecats.

New York- an exercise in contrast. A symphony of disjointed notes and dazzling harmony. A neighborhood of the friendly where you are constantly surrounded by strangers. A place that is home to everyone and nobody at the same time.

I have mixed feelings about it. It’s phenomenal, of course, and simultaneously discouraging. I seem “New York” when I leave and so “West Coast” when I stay. I fit and I don’t.

In the West Village, the haven of gay culture and young people, the only violence I ever hear about is against gay men, and when I hear of it, it is usually recent, deadly and totally inconspicuous.

I’ve become both more tolerant and less so. Drag queens make sense to me, and I don’t blink at the homeless man on the subway starting his monologue. Diversity is the norm. Celebrity is irrelevant.

I scoff heartily at “cash only.” When my friends visit without any heels, I get annoyed. I judge people who don’t drink alcohol as boring, and I find it weird when I can’t get takeout at two in the morning. I tolerate the homeless man on the subway but know how to avoid him confronting me.

I see love all the time. I see it in the couple on the pier reading in the sun, the surprising number of water bowls put out for dogs around the city, in the young man freaking out as he yells at another that he broke his heart. I see it every time a woman with a cane walks onto the subway and someone gives their seat away, and every time I show up at my busy bagel shop and the man behind the counter offers me a nod and expedites my order.

New York is a weird place- the best and the worst all wrapped together in a vertical package that juts into the sky without restraint, reaching for heaven and falling short. Every time I come to a conclusion about its worth, about its character, about its suitability it changes, it tricks me, it fools me into finding its beauty, its scars, its head on a platter begging, eat me up. Eat me up because soon, I’ll have a new face.

Soak up my ever-oscillating faces and sink into messy, beautiful opportunity, and you might just find something that makes it all worth it.

The 5 Best Pro-Confidence Videos Out There

So recently, there’s been a flood of pro-confidence, women’s empowerment videos and images gracing the internet that have actually getting some attention. Go team!

With all of these videos blowing up our Facebook, news sources and hashtags, its hard to know which ones to watch. To make it easier, I’ve developed a short list of the videos and images that I’ve found most powerful as a mid-twenties girl with fluctuating body issues and an addiction to cookie dough. Enjoy!

1.  Famous Paintings made Skinny 
2. The Best Photoshop De-mystefying Video Ever
3. The Generational Perpetuation of Body Issues
4. This News Anchor Nails It 
5. Hilarious Backhanding. Not. 

Digital Media Opportunities: Why "Social Action" Should Be the Next New Vertical

Media is one of the most powerful mediums that we have in the world; it informs our opinions, determines how we view and react to conflict and influences our perception of the world. While traditional news outlets use ‘war journalism,’ a type of journalism that focuses on sensationalism, conflict and outrage, ‘peace journalism’ provides a means to speak about conflict while taking responsibility for the media’s ability to facilitate peaceful solutions rather than war.

Because media is a powerful tool, we have new opportunity with emerging mediums, especially in the digital space. The flurry of digital media sites emerging with topics that cover everything from celebrity style to dangerous food ingredients provide a platform for us to decide what kind of material we want to be part of our general discourse. Often referred to as verticals, these categories usually include news, lifestyle and entertainment. But what about promoting social consciousness or community action?

In fact, many emerging media sites include articles that have social messages – posts about organizations making broad social change, ways to volunteer and the importance of self-confidence are out there, and that’s awesome. What I advocate for is a social action vertical.

Why? By creating a vertical that is dedicated to social action, encouraging positivity and facilitating peace, these topics can become an integrated part of what people will expect in the conversation and in a digital media space. Because there are so many new platforms, and people are open to (and creating) amazing new ways to use them, we have an opportunity to make social awareness part of people’s everyday lives in a way that it has not been before. And that could mean big change for the world and for individuals living happier, more compassionate lives.